


The Curious Incident in the Kitchen at Snack-time

by RurouniHime



Series: Sarah-verse [6]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Captain Fucking America, Domestic Avengers, Established Relationship, Kid Fic, M/M, Protective Steve, Snacks & Snack Food, Steve might have an issue with that discrepancy, Superhusbands, they didn't train for this at Lehigh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-09 10:41:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3246638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RurouniHime/pseuds/RurouniHime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The serum doesn't protect against this kind of heart palpitation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Curious Incident in the Kitchen at Snack-time

**Author's Note:**

> The Title: I don't even know. It don't think I have one. I like Sherlock Holmes.

Bruce wanders into the kitchen just as Steve finishes slicing the apples, slumping into a chair and rubbing a hand over his face. His shirt is wrinkled and he’s got a respectable five o’clock shadow. Steve lays the knife safely in the sink, raising an eyebrow at his teammate, but Bruce just smiles weakly and shakes his head.

“Alright.” Steve turns around, bottle of orange juice in hand, and gets some cups down for himself and his helper. “So this is?”

“Snack,” Sarah says dutifully.

“Yep.” He unscrews the cap and pours himself a generous helping, then gives the bag of Oreos a shake. “And this?”

“Treat.”

“How many more treats before dinner?”

“None more.”

“Smarty.” He arranges a few cookies on the plate next to the apple slices and cheese. “Bruce, you want snack?”

A muffled groan comes from the direction of the table. Bruce’s face is no longer visible, cradled in his arms.

“Long night?”

Even his snort sounds weak. “Yeah. If by night, you mean month.”

Steve winces.

“Daddyyyyyy,” Sarah whines, hands raised and grasping. 

He crouches down, holding Sarah’s cup, and passes her the orange juice bottle. “Okay, be very careful.”

She goes slowly, fingers spread wide and brow crinkled as she hefts the bottle high enough to pour. When her cup is filled to the top, she tips back onto her heels with a sigh. Steve pops the lid on the cup and reaches for the orange juice.

“I can do it.” Sarah is already turning toward the fridge, bottle hugged to her chest.

“Hold up, super girl.” He snags the cap off the counter and twists it home, then stands, grabbing the plate of food. “Okay.” He toes the refrigerator door open for her. “I’ll take these out to the couch.”

“Uh huh.”

“Just on the bottom shelf there.”

“Uh huh.”

He sets the plate and their drinks down, and has just pressed the channel-up button when a thump and a terrible crash rattle the kitchen. The sound of wood grating on tile, a clatter, a _rrrrrrrrrripCRACK—_

Steve sprints the way he came, heart jammed into his throat.

There is orange juice everywhere. The remnants of a Pyrex dish arc across the floor, lasagna splattered in chunks. Sarah stands in the middle of the mess, her toes squinched up and her hands cupped over her mouth. Her eyes are comically wide, but the tableau couldn’t be further from funny. 

“I dropped it,” she confesses, muffled behind her fingers. 

“Bruce.” Steve grabs the nearest thing to hand, the decorative dish Thor picked up for the hall table, and wheels it back, ready to throw.

On the other side of the now-smashed table, the Hulk glares back at him, shoulders heaving. The chair Bruce was using is in pieces, the counter tile behind him split. 

“Hulk,” Steve tries, much softer this time. He eyes the distance. His four-year-old child is exactly between them. And the Hulk can get there in half the time.

Sarah lets out her breath in a whoosh, and Steve’s muscles jump, almost jettisoning him forward. “Sarah, don’t move.” 

The Hulk wheels irritably, thumping the floor with both fists. Bruce was certainly tired, but Steve’d had no idea he was _that_ tired. If the Hulk makes a move, he’ll have less than a second to get between his daughter and his friend, and this platter isn’t going to do a damn thing. His shield wouldn’t do a damn thing. 

It’s been weeks since Bruce last changed, they’ve all grown too damned complacent, Tony’s in New Zealand, and all Steve can think about is what he’ll come home to.

Hulk shuffles forward, a crunch as what’s left of the chair breaks underfoot. The plate is nearly off Steve’s fingertips, instinctive. 

“Bruce, _don’t.”_

Sarah at least is quiet. But a voice does pipe, so softly that even Steve can barely pick it up.

“The team has been alerted, Captain.”

“Tell them to keep their distance,” Steve hisses through immobile lips. He inches forward, free hand stretching out toward Sarah, and Hulk’s pupils dilate, a rumble of warning sounding from deep in his throat. Steve stops. 

“I have activated the Mark X-3.”

“Get Tony on the line.” On a good day, Tony can talk the Hulk down, or Clint. Today may not be a good day.

The Hulk’s eyes drop to Sarah just as she looks his way, and the kitchen goes silent. The attention can’t be off Steve too soon: he tenses, ready to leap between. The next minute spools out blankly. All he has to do is get Sarah out of the line of fire. Then…

Then.

Well. What happens then doesn’t matter. Outside the battlefield, he may not be so used to this instant knowledge, that he’ll die for someone in a second. But he recognizes it like meeting an old friend. Something dense settles in his belly.

“Uncle Bruce,” Sarah says, sounding vaguely affronted.

She’s seen footage of the Hulk. Of course she’d recognize him. But even Tony flinched away from anything nearer than that, visibly stiff. Sarah has never been this close.

Steve reads the twitch of muscle and tendon before it happens. His nerves spike like knives; he dashes forward, but the Hulk merely reaches out, wraps a hand around Sarah’s middle and lifts her off the ground.

And relocates her to one of the still-functioning chairs.

Steve skids to a stop two steps in, breathing hard, and watches as the Hulk brushes bits of glass from Sarah’s jeans.

“My pants are all wet,” Sarah says, as though her uncle has not just ballooned in size and turned the color of a clover. The Hulk grunts, snorting at the mess as though it has insulted him.

“Cap, you want me in there?” Clint’s voice comes from behind, out in the hallway.

“Not yet.” His legs are ready to give out; he makes himself remain upright with willpower alone. Can’t afford to fall down, startle anyone. The Hulk’s proximity to Sarah has every vein thrumming.

 _“Steve?”_ That’s Tony, through JARVIS’ speakers. He sounds clotted, like he’s just flailed out of bed and thumped onto the floor.

“Yeah.”

_“Is she—”_

“Safe. For now.” The Hulk plants himself on his haunches beside Sarah’s chair. They are both picking at the hems of her jeans, Sarah bent at the waist, Hulk’s massive fingers making her wobble with each bump. Sarah grabs onto the behemoth’s shoulder for balance and Steve tenses, but the Hulk merely scoops a palm around behind her, holding her in place. 

_“Get away from the windows.”_ It’s as though something has clamped around Tony’s throat and cranked. _“I can send the suit around her.”_

“Negative,” Steve says faintly. There is the _strangest_ look on the Hulk’s pinched face. Steve’s seen it on Bruce in Sarah’s presence, but never on his counterpart, at any time. “Uh…our friend likes kids.”

A pause. _“Huh.”_ Steve can hear the breathlessness under Tony’s words.

In the hallway, Clint lets out a long sigh. “Ah, hell.” A sniff, then, “Stand by, Tasha.”

Steve inches a little further into the decimated kitchen space, wincing as his shoe comes down on broken glass. The Hulk is… well, he’s grunting, mumbling, maybe, no words that Steve can understand, but he can see his daughter nodding back clear as day. She tugs the elastic band free of one lopsided pigtail and the Hulk _puts out his hand_ so she can lay the hair-tie in his palm. 

_“Babe, talk to me. Steve? Hey, now would really be time for you to say—”_

“They’re good.” He sounds incredulous even to himself, and yet he can’t quite believe his own words. The need to get her away still itches like a sunburn. He reminds himself of all the times he has fought beside the Hulk, come into contact and come away none the worse for wear. _Tony_ has been within three feet during a full on freak out, sans armor, and come out of it unscathed.

_“You sure?”_

She’s… slapping palms with Bruce’s alter ego, a light, playful rhythm Steve recognizes, guiding a hand larger than her torso into something resembling a low-five. “They’re playing patty-cake.”

A pause. _“Patty-cake.”_

“Yeah,” Sarah says, “like that.”

The Hulk grins.

Steve slides a little closer. “You okay, sweet pea?”

The look Sarah gives him is puzzled, and concerned about him, and it’s almost hysterically funny that she should be the one to—

The Hulk lets out a warning snort.

“Okay,” Steve whispers, freezing where he stands. He waves Clint down where his teammate has finally inched into view, then lowers himself as slowly as he can to the floor in the middle of the kitchen, eyes on the Hulk the entire time. For his part, the Hulk glares Steve down into stillness, then snorts, satisfied. Steve rubs his thighs with both palms. “Okay,” he says again, and clears his throat. “We can sit, right, Clint? Until we’re invited?”

“We sure can.”

He can sit. He’s fine with that.

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> It WAS going to be _The Adventures of Big Green and Little S_. Obviously I still don't have a title.


End file.
